Australia has a problem with money in politics

Australian politics is certainly awash with money. Political parties collectively declared almost half a billion in spending in the lead-up to the 2025 federal election.

Money matters in elections because it helps spread political messages far and wide. For political parties and candidates, there’s a strong electoral incentive to outspend your opponents – to get your messages to more voters – if you can raise the money to do so.

This creates something of an arms race – a competitive escalation of spending and an equivalent escalation in fundraising efforts to support it.

Political parties become dependent on a small number of powerful individuals, businesses, and unions, to fund their campaigns. And in what has been to date a shadowy world of donations and lobbying, this dependence creates enormous risks of private influence over public decision-making.

Political donations buy access and sometimes influence over public policy. The well-resourced and highly motivated achieve much greater access and influence than most Australians could ever expect.

State data show that highly regulated businesses – those that have the most to gain, or lose, from government decisions – are disproportionately large political donors and have far more meetings with senior politicians than less regulated businesses, or consumer groups.

It is not surprising that these businesses are knocking on the doors of government. The worry is that such a heavy skew means policymakers are not getting a balanced view of the issues.

Gambling regulation is one example where vested interests and the public interest don’t align.

The gambling industry punches well above its weight on donations and lobbying, and appears to have had undue influence over regulation at state and federal levels.

Better regulation of gambling would be in the public interest, and there is strong public support for reform, but state and federal governments have been reluctant to take on these powerful vested interests.

The link between money and access is most explicit when it comes to political fundraising events. Albanese’s Point Piper dinner appears to have been one such event.

Many donors openly say that they believe the benefits of attending fundraiser events include access to key decision-makers and facilitating policy discussion.

While explicit corruption is rare in Australia – and we rank well internationally in the Corruption Perceptions Index – the risk is in more subtle influences: that donors get more access to policymakers and their views are given more weight.

So, how can we reduce the influence of money in Australian politics?

First, political donations and lobbying activity should be much more transparent. This would give politicians, journalists, and the broader public better information to call out undue influence when they see it.

New electoral rules at the federal level, which come into effect from January 1, 2027, will provide more transparency on political donations. All donations of more than $5000 will need to be publicly disclosed (down from more than $17,000), and the information will be made public more quickly.

That means Australians will finally know who’s donating while policy issues – and elections – are still in play.

The new rules also introduce caps on political donations and electoral expenditure. Donation caps help to limit the influence of any single interest. Expenditure caps put a ceiling on the fundraising arms race.

These are important reforms, but they don’t go far enough. There are substantial problems with the current design. The total cap of $90 million for electoral expenditure by a political party is too high – leaving too much money in Australian politics. Other parts of the legislation advantage major parties and incumbents over new entrants.

Parliament should revisit these electoral reforms to reduce the influence of money in politics and level the playing field for new entrants – and it should do so before the next federal election.

Transparency around lobbying activity is also needed – and would provide an additional check on donor influence.

Ministerial diaries should be published, so voters know who our most senior policymakers are meeting.

And the lobbyist register should be broader so that it includes in-house lobbyists, not just commercial ones.

Better information on lobbying activity should make it possible to identify which major donors are also active lobbyists, and what they are lobbying for.

Of course, the prime minister attends “lots of dinners”. Our politicians should be engaging widely. But they also need to give us all the confidence that they are there for the ideas, not the money.